Congressman Bob Filner used the final debate of the 2012 Mayoral campaign to announce an endorsement by former President Bill Clinton. The face off at the local Fox affiliate was the last of twenty nine joint appearances by Congressman Filner and City Councilman DeMaio. SD Free Press blogger Andy Cohen was there, and I’m assuming he’ll weigh in with more coverage.
Meanwhile, a poll by the Pharos Research Group shows Congressman Bob Filner leading by seven points in San Diego’s hotly contested race for mayor. An analysis of the results says that 708 likely voters answered a live call (meaning that it wasn’t a robo-poll) from October 19 to October 21; 52% of the respondents were men and party identifications closely mirrored that of the city’s electorate.
The survey indicated that 47.46% indicated a preference for Filner, while 40.68% preferred City Councilman Carl DeMaio. 11.86% of respondents indicated they were undecided. Questions were also asked about likely voters’ general impressions of the candidates and the answers strongly suggest that many will be driven to vote for what they consider the lesser of two evils.
While Congressman Filner’s ‘favorable/unfavorables’ improved from previous polls, coming in at 48.85/51.55 compared to 42.51/57.49, Councilman DeMaio’s numbers came in worse at 35.31/64.69 compared to 37.75/62.25.
The Pharos analysis suggests that San Diego voters’ dissatisfaction with their choices is the driving factor in the race for Mayor and that the 11.86% who remain undecided could be deciding who to vote on the basis of who they dislike less. These numbers could be behind the DeMaio campaign’s decision to go ‘all in’ on advertising aimed at denigrating their opponent’s character.
Since we are not familiar with the Pharos Group, we did a little research on them. They are apparently legit, primarily engaging in commercial market research, surveys for hospitals, clinics, etc., and there is a San Diego connection there: one of the partners in the company appears to be local attorney Michael A. Gardiner. The folks at Daily Kos, who are typically deeply suspicious of new pollsters on the scene have been all over Pharos and they seem to be passing Kossack the “sniff test”. (Be sure to read the comments with this link.)
The Numbers Are In: New Record Set for Registered Voters
As of Wednesday, California counties are reporting a record high in registered voters, with 18.14 million people signed up, easily besting the previous record of 17.33 million registrants, set in February 2009.
The State’s new online registration system and growing interest in the tight presidential race are credited with helping to create a surge of over one million applications in recent weeks. The numbers will most likely continue to rise as some counties are still verifying new registrants, with one analyst quoted in the LA Times predicting that the final number will top 18.4 million registered voters.
The Democratic Party snagged 48% of new voter registrations, with Republicans getting 20% and the remaining 32% declaring for “decline to state” or other parties. The 28-point Democratic advantage is more than double the current partisan spread in California and could change the dynamic of some legislative and congressional contests.
Republicans Drop to Third Place in San Diego Party Preferences
“No Party Preference” voters have displaced registered Republicans in the city of San Diego as the second most popular voter choice, according to the San Diego County Registrar of Voters’ October registration numbers.
Over the past month the number of registered Democrats increased by 7% locally. While Republicans were able show a 3.5% jump, the number of “no preference” voters increased by 7.5%. The GOP went from having a 3600 voter lead over “no preference” in September to trailing them by about 3,000 voters as the election nears.
Although Republicans still have second place in county-wide registrations, the recent surge in new voters showed a 6.6% increase for Democrats, 3.5% for Republicans and 7% for No Party Preference.
DeMaio Goes After the Zombie Vote
In addition to participating in the final debate of this electoral season, Mayoral candidate Carl DeMaio had some other local appearances to make.
From a KPBS story by Katie Orr:
The councilman was set to visit a restaurant today to discuss small businesses and job creation, and was to speak at a conference of security professionals at the Paradise Point Resort.
We don’t know how many potential voters were at that Paradise Point Resort conference, but we do know that there were plenty of zombies on hand. From yesterday’s column:
The 44 acre Paradise Point Resort on Mission Bay will be the site of a Hollywood-style production of a zombie attack as part of an emergency response training program. It’s just one part of five-day counterterrorism summit run by the Halo Corporation as an approved training event by the Homeland Security Grant Program and the Urban Areas Security Initiative. Participants (or in most cases, government agencies) are coughing up a $1,000 registration fee. The session runs through Friday.
Called “Zombie Apocalypse,” the exercise follows last year’s Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s campaign urging Americans to get ready for a zombie apocalypse, as part of a catchy, public health message about the importance of emergency preparedness.
Bwahahahaha!
Political Consultant Larry Remer Hailed in UT-San Diego Editorial
Actually, ‘hailed’ is probably the wrong word. I would be willing to bet that he is the most mentioned non-elected official in UT-San Diego editorials. Every time there is a school bond measure up before the voters, Remer’s name gets flaunted as one of the reasons why people should be scared and vote ‘No’. And today’s editorial against Proposition Z is no exception.
…we now see the rich spectacle of the district’s bond consultant, Larry Remer, lecturing critics of San Diego Unified and impugning their motives.
I mention this editorial NOT to bring up a debate about Proposition Z or Larry Remer’s innate goodness/evilness. Rather I’d like to point out that the “lecturing” the UT-SD is referring to is an article published right here at the San Diego Free Press. And the “critics” would be the Voice of San Diego.
Obviously other media outlets fall into the “they who should not be mentioned” category with the UT’s editorial board. God forbid that any other voices should be heard or even acknowledged. So when I grow up I want to become ‘famous’ like Larry Remer, because at least he gets mentioned by name.
(Full disclosure: Remer and I worked together back in the day as co-editors of the San Diego Door, an alternative newspaper.)
Desperation Sets In for National GOP Race
Despite the UT-San Diego’s promise/prediction that President Obama will lose by a landslide next Tuesday against Mitt Romney, polling indicates that the national popular vote is virtually tied. San Diegans will likely give the incumbent an eight point or greater margin.
Here’s the real scary (if you’re a Republican) stuff, from Nate Silver over at FiveThirtyEight.com:
Mr. Obama is not a sure thing, by any means. It is a close race. His chances of holding onto his Electoral College lead and converting it into another term are equivalent to the chances of an N.F.L. team winning when it leads by a field goal with three minutes left to play in the fourth quarter. There are plenty of things that could go wrong, and sometimes they will.
But it turns out that an N.F.L. team that leads by a field goal with three minutes left to go winds up winning the game 79 percent of the time. Those were Mr. Obama’s chances in the FiveThirtyEight forecast as of Wednesday: 79 percent.
So the Republicans are… drumroll… taking off the gloves. If you thought things were nasty before, you ain’t seen nothing yet. The aforementioned Nate Silver (who’s all about the science, and always careful to hedge his forecasts) is being attacked for being “effeminate”.
Fox News media analyst Bernard Goldberg on Tuesday accused mainstream media reporters of “wishing” that Hurricane Sandy had devastated swing states so that it would make President Barack Obama look more presidential.
“Do you think that more than a few reporters are sort of wishing that the hurricane had not hit two blue states like New Jersey, but had hit Iowa and Ohio and Wisconsin?” Goldberg asked Fox News host Bill O’Reilly.
I’m saying this only half tongue-in-cheek,” he continued. “More than a few of them wish it hit there [because] that might help President Obama look presidential — which he’s entitled to look — in three important states.”
“Because it’s not going to make any difference in New York and New Jersey.”
While Goldberg believes that the hurricane could have helped the president, The Daily Caller’s Tucker Carlson had the exact opposite opinion on Tuesday.
Carlson told Fox News host Sean Hannity that voters would subconsciously blame Obama for the hurricane.
At Salon.com:
Here are the conservative explanations for Chris Christie’s recent effusive praise of Barack Obama: The Daily Caller’s Matt Lewis says the force of Christie’s praise is suspect: “The issue here is about the degree to which he is going out of his way to help Obama politically — and the context of the timing.” He thinks this indicates a personal schism between Christie and Romney.
But my favorite explanation comes from genius political analyst Joel Pollack at Big Government, one of the increasingly easily ignorable stable of dumb blogs and lie-generation machines founded by the late Andrew Breitbart.
Here is Pollack’s theory: Christie is praising Obama because Mitt Romney is so far ahead that it doesn’t matter.
And then there’s this headline over at Drudge.com:
POLL: Majority Of Israelis Would Vote For Romney Over Obama…
Candidate Romney is even grasping at internet rumors as the campaign winds down.
From The National Memo:
You can point out that Mitt Romney is the proud owner of a record number of PolitiFact “Pants on Fire” awards. You can say that MSNBC’s Steve Benen has chronicled hundreds of Romney’s lies. You can watch CNN’s Candy Crowley being forced to fact-check the Republican nominee during the middle of the second debate.
But Mitt Romney never thought he’d be fact-checked by his real friends — corporations.
After Romney decided to repeat an Internet rumor that Jeep was moving jobs to China, Chrysler was forced to correct the former governor of Massachusetts on its blog.
Then Romney — as they say — doubled down and reworded the claim in a unannounced TV commercial followed by a radio ad, this time adding an accusation that General Motors was also moving jobs abroad.
This forced General Motors to fact-check the son of the former head of American Motors, “We’ve clearly entered some parallel universe during these last few days,” they said, but “no amount of campaign politics at its cynical worst will diminish our record of creating jobs in the U.S. and repatriating profits back to this country.”
Both Chrysler and General Motors have added new jobs in China to make cars sold in China. But neither has moved American jobs abroad — unlike Delphi Automotive, a company the Romneys are invested in. And both Chrysler and General Motors would likely be out of business with a million Americans out of work if the government had taken Romney’s advice.
On This Day: In 1950 Charles Cooper became the first black man to play in the National Basketball Association (NBA). In 1979 Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini urged all Iranians to demonstrate on November 4 and to expand their attacks against the U.S. and Israel. On November 4, Iranian militants seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran and took 63 Americans hostage. In 1968 George Harrison released the soundtrack “Wonderwall.” He was the first Beatle to release a solo album
Eat Fresh! Today’s Farmer’s Markets: Carmel Valley (Canyon Crest Academy 5951 Village Center Loop Road) 3:30 – 7:00 pm, Chula Vista(Downtown, Center St. & Third Ave.) 3 –7 pm, Linda Vista (6900 Linda Vista Road Between Comstock & Ulric) 2 – 7 pm, North Park (CVSPharmacy parking lot 3151 University & 32nd St.) 3 – 7 pm, Oceanside Market & Faire (Pier View Way & Coast Hwy. 101) 9 am – 1 pm,Oceanside Sunset (Tremont & Pier View Way) 5 –9 pm, San Carlos (Pershing Middle School 8204 San Carlos Drive) 4 – 7 pm, SDSU Farmers’ Market (Campanile Walkway btw Hepner Hall & Love Library) 10 – 3 pm, University Town Center (Genesee Ave. at UTC Westfield Shopping Plaza) 3 – 7 pm.
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